On Lifetime's T"he Conversation With Amanda de Cadenet" on Thursday, the 26-year-old pop star revealed she has "begun to cherish my loneliness. I have, sort of, since I was around 20 years old."

In the interview -- taped before her split with "The Vampire Diaries" actor Taylor Kinney, 30 -- Gaga (real name: Stefani Germanotta) admitted she was "very depressed when I was 19. I decided to pursue music, so I dropped out of school and I told my parents I didn't want any money from them. I got three jobs and I just hit the ground running."

"I would go back to my apartment every day and I would just sit there. It was quiet and it was lonely. It was still. It was just my piano and myself. I had a television and I would leave it on all the time just to feel like somebody was hanging out with me," she continued. "And especially during the period when I was doing cocaine. It was like the drug was my friend. I never did it with other people. It's such a terrible way to fill that void, because it just adds to that void, because it's not real."

Though she continued to use drugs for some time, the "Marry the Night" singer eventually had an epiphany: "I sort of f------ woke up one day and was like, 'You're an ass----. You're not an artist. If you were a real f------ artist, you'd be focused on your music. You wouldn't be spending your money on the white devil."